Let's talk about Steem

Prologue

If you are a content creator participating on Steem, you are well aware of the challenges the blockchain and its dApps are facing.

The idea that content would be the main drive behind the platforms built on Steem was both genius and very difficult to achieve. However, in many ways, it's an ingenious way of creating the network effect that any crypto project would require to succeed in the long term by distributing the currency as fairly as possible.

Now, Steem is succeeding at distributing the currency to as many people as possible in a way that no-other blockchain-project has done before or is currently doing. But the goal of rewarding creators for their content isn't possible with the current state of Steem.

However, in the very near future, changes will come to Steem that could very well attract and retain millions of users to Steem.

With that said - let's get into the details. And starting off with one of the most important ones: voting based on account instead of stake.

1 Account = 1 Vote

You might have already seen the video with @ned and @theoretical in which they explain coming possible changes to Steem which are part of :

1 Account = 1 Vote

Oracles

SMTs

If you haven't watched the video, I strongly recommend to do it, in order to better understand this post:

Alright, and to understand why account voting is such a big deal - let me take a selfie let me first explain what's wrong with the current system.

The current system is flawed

.. at least for content creators.

Steem is supposed to be THE alternative to other social media, which rewards its participators with cryptocurrencies.

One thing @ned very often says is that Steem uses the proof of brain algorithm, which makes sure that content quality is crowdsourced and revenue is determined based on the intelligence of the crowd.

At least that's the plan in-theory..

The reality, however, looks quite different.

Problem: Stakeweighted Voting

The reality is that Steem very much resembles the real world, in the sense that not everyone's opinion is worth the same.

Example: @ned is the CEO of Steemit Inc and has millions of Steempower, but this fact shouldn't give his opinion hundred-thousand times more weight in terms of the subjective rating of content in comparison to the average user.

Imagine what would have happened if Warren Buffet, who is openly opposed to Bitcoin - would be on Steem and were to downvote every post related to cryptocurrencies and upvote every post that would slender the legibility of them.

Important: Now, don't get me wrong. I'm 100% in favour of stake-voting for decisions regarding the blockchain-level (Witness Approvals etc.) as the amount of stake in Steem goes hand in hand with the desire to make decisions that will let Steem grow and flourish.

But in regards to content voting - stake voting is a huge barrier, which is also driving away big creators who came to Steem from other platforms.

Big Content Creators: hello and bye

There are quite a lot of people who believe that the success of Steem relies on marketing and bringing more influencers to Steem.

But my personal opinion to that is as follows:

Don't do that .. yet.

Successful content creators from other platforms already came to Steem ... and left.

Analyse Results

And honestly: I can completely understand his reasoning - I would probably do the same thing if I were him.

Why would anybody, who is generating 200k views per video alone, invest any time into producing content for a platform, that is maybe generating around 100 views - roughly about 0.0005%.

Now, he is generating some revenue out of his activity on Steem, but this is not enough to justify the effort for custom videos which will not generate any views.

The Solution

Getting back to the main topic of this post: 1 Account = 1 Vote

I truly believe that this change, in addition with oracles, custom rewards-pools and SMTs, which will govern the uniqueness of account - will attract big content creators and most importantly: many, many users.

And on top of that, the new changes for account creation (which will make accounts nearly free) and the new bandwith credits will ensure that user growth isn't bottlenecked by account creations and bandwith limitations.

Every user - regardless of Steempower - should have a vote which has the same value as anybody else. And whoever tries to game this system (e.g. by using multiple accounts), should be punished by the oracles and/or incentivised to rather use one account.

But what about Stakeholders?

With that said: I also believe that stakeholders should be rewarded for their staked Steem (in form of Steempower).

You seem to be right, since I came here in the beginning of 2018, all I've seen was my investment turning to dust, while whales keep circle-jerking and STINC just talks and does nothing else.
There is no real correlation between the value of STEEM and the so-called quality of content (spoiler: it's shit in 95% of cases) that is advocated so much. No paid votes - no exposure - waste of time - creators leave. By now I wish I never came.
How can we expect this place to explode and go viral when new users can't even register easily? I invited some of my friends to join and each and every one run into a registration problem, I even had to buy one account myself after weeks of waiting. At the same time, bots come in in hundreds. It is so easy to fix (I'm saying that as a programmer), yet STINC have done nothing but putting a caption that a free registration means waiting for a couple of weeks. They still manage to fail to fix it.
How can we explain that, besides calling them what they are - amateurs, incompetent and uninterested in the accomplishing the goals.
Now they promise SMTs, communities, hivemind, you name it. Look at this, almost 5 months ago they were "about to introduce" those changes and they still haven't.
I'd really like to believe that success is just around the corner, but crypto space just keeps disappointing, especially steemit.

Interesting, it's not as bad as I thought. They seem to actually work on it. Still, it doesn't invalidate the fact that there were no major improvements for more than half a year and steemit is still not appealing to the new users either visually or by functionality. Nor can they signup normally.

First thing that attracted me to steemit was "quality of content". But then I realised the bots and their role. I was little dissapointed because it became all about upvoting and not focusing on content

Yes u are right. But without bots it is very difficult to atract people or to reach them. Even like this. I invested a small amount because i believe that that can help in the begining. I always try to share my experience about life. But most of the people here are just looking for crypto topics and also even they following u but if they dont see the big amount they dont vote.
When i start i didnt use any bot. I didnt earn almost nothing and also i didnt had followers. Than i told to myself lets try it different way. After i make some promotion for my posts i start to recieve votes and also followers.
Maybe the problem is about the feed or it will be also good if there will be a friend list maybe.

Tnx for this. It is helpful. I am still in doubt to use bots or not because we are responsible how is steemit going to work. Using them we are encouriging to bots become dominant and important, but I din't think that corelates with the idea of good content getting recognized and eventualy get some earnings on that quality

To be honest now since few days i also make usually 2 posts. For 1 i use bots still but for the another post not.
I think the main problem is that more and more people wanna just earn here so they are not curious about the posts. The important for them is just that they have the votes on they own. Thats why it is so so hard to reach the people. But if they see a post with few dollars already than they will follow u they will also vote. Most of the time the reason is because they wanna earn as a currators.
But also i think that the system also need the people like these because just with content creators there will be less trafic and the vallue of the sbd will fall. Maybe i am wrong but this is what i think.
I am sure it will be easier if there will be a friend list.
So basicly in everything good there is something wrong and in wrong things there is also good.

Bernie. Being the guy that just wants to see it all burn hopefully will get old with time for you.
Statements like you just made, that amateurs are developing for Steemit.inc is a fatalist statement.
Someone had to come up with the idea of SMTs and Oracles. Was it Dan?
Youre making money here, im making money here regardless of all the problems, lets try and give the guys trying to make it all a bit better some support. At least the benefit of a doubt.

That's very easy for you to say when you have little stake in Steem. I come up with ideas all day long, just because it popped into my head doesn't mean I should talk about it for 18 months like it's actually going to come to fruition.

If we rely on STINC to develop everything, then we are not really decentralized. @steemhunt has developed a decent Account Based Voting system on their own. You are a programmer, right? So how about developing something on STEEM like @steemhunt or @steemmonsters

Alternatively you can sell your stake and get into a STEEM competitor or just buy EOS which is going to have lots of airdrops.

Easy for me to say? You pull your stakes out right now or few weeks from now when the market recovers and youre probably set for a long time. I on the other hand have to hope that my talent, time and effort i place here will amount to something in the future. That one day i might be able to say that i dont have to worry about finances all day long. So really its not "easy for me to say"..

Developing complex ideas takes time. You call upon Dan as the "fruition guy" and he needed 2 projects before making EOS that still isnt perfect..
Ned makes some silly mistakes but hes my age, running a a company based on revolutionary tech. Walking in uncharted territory. Expecting instagram, facebook, youtube level of development is beyond any reason.

Interesting enough, i have been thinking about this today, and there is a main reason that high quality content creators are not attracted to Steemit:

There is no long term revenue for the content

If i were a high-quality content creator, and somehow ended up here on steemit, the first thing i noticed was that everything i create here will only earn me revenue for only 7 days.

So, why would i work my ass to create anything to this site, when i can post on YouTube/Spotify/My own blog/Medium and recieve revenue for this content for the rest of my life? (or as long as the said services were avaiable).

It just doesn´t make any sense for actual real content creators, since this means that your older work doesn´t bring you monetary value. The only one that keeps on "profiting" from your work is Steem itself.

Here is something that should be discussed:

Why not distribute the reward pool also to old content?

I will elaborate this idea better on a future post, but basically this could actually be an incentive for high quality content creators publish their content around here.

I think this is a fundamental problem, if the objective is to attract high quality content creators.

On the other hand, if the idea is for Steem to work as a Social Media platform (like reddit), then the system might be working just fine.

And about the Solutions to the voting problem, i don´t think it is a good idea to make 1 account = 1 vote in conjuntion with free account creation.

And whoever tries to game this system (e.g. by using multiple accounts), should be punished by the oracles and/or incentivised to rather use one account.

So, how would be possible to moderate millons of account being created everytime an account is shutdown? In my humble opinion, this will be the nail on the coffin.

Unlimited time-frame reward is hard to implement in STEEM blockchain since every block/reward is produced in a timeframe (e.g. 3 seconds). Reward is calculated from yearly fixed inflation rate.

However, monetizing great contents with online Ads can be implemented with an SMT.

For example, a separate website/DApp for the contents will have embedded Ads according to popularity. Content creators may have to post content using the DApp to participating in the extra earning through SMT. The DApp owner can accumulate these Ad profits and share with the content creators according to contents popularity.
The number of visits can be converted to a number of SMTs for every week/month.

Moreover, extra earning from Ads will attract authors and can also be used buy back SMT's .

Though it looks like it is against STEEM's philosophy, but these alleged ever-green contents need to rewarded forever.

The bottom line is that a top content can earn forever with Ads, however, STEEM blockchain can't reward them beyond 7 days. An SMT with intelligent algorithm can solve some of the issues.

I think your idea to make use of old contents is what we all want here but it seems quite impossible for it right now to be done. Well, Steemit is just very new and still struggling and facing new challenges. I'm sure the current system now will be changed so we'll just have to wait and see what will happen next while writing content here.

All of these changes are proposed future changes to Steem but they aren't part of Hardfork 20. And the 1 account/1 vote thing and the Oracle thing are almost completely vaporware at this point. SMTs are still quite a ways away, and those two things may or may not be a part of them. If they are it will push the development time out even farther.

I'm glad you like my proposal, and the idea of tying the participation rewards to a 1 account = 1 vote scheme is intriguing. I'm going to have to think about that when I'm more awake.

I think in general we don't have enough systems in place to make sure quality new users are supported and rewarded, and thus if we start bringing in lots of new users we're just going to end up with lots of former users. This isn't helped by Steem Inc.'s unwillingness to use any of their power on curation/retention initiatives. We can have all the dApps in the world but if people aren't connecting it won't matter.

All of these changes are proposed future changes to Steem but they aren't part of Hardfork 20.

I've changed the post, removing comments regarding HF20 for now. The last thing I want to do is to spread false news and I had the understanding of more things coming in HF20 than in the latest news post.

And the 1 account/1 vote thing and the Oracle thing are almost completely vaporware at this point.

But I'm not on par with that statement. SMTs and Oracles go hand in hand; and in the video - @ned and @theoretical sounded pretty serious about the math and logic behind account voting.

Having a voting-system for content-rating based on stake will not work - see the Furious Pete example in the post. And regardless how long it takes - if STEEM wants to attract millions of active users - it has to come.

I'm glad you like my proposal, and the idea of tying the participation rewards to a 1 account = 1 vote scheme is intriguing. I'm going to have to think about that when I'm more awake.

But I'm not on par with that statement. SMTs and Oracles go hand in hand; and in the video - @ned and @theoretical sounded pretty serious about the math and logic behind account voting.

Ned really likes conceptual work. Which is great, I do too! But you can't really take them as signs that that thing is coming the way he talks about it. That's not necessarily inappropriate in this case, as SMTs are Hardfork 22 at the earliest, and that's probably next summer. (#21 is Hivemind.)

Anyway, thinking more about how this fits with my proposal, maybe I'm extrapolating what you're saying too much here, and please say so. But it sounds like what you would like is to keep the PoS function of Steem running but remove the content voting system from Steem entirely and migrate it to a new SMT.

I think that's interesting but it seems like it's essentially how EOS and ONO work and they're already there, or nearly so. Maybe that will turn out to be a better idea but I'm not sure getting into it a year+ behind is worthwhile.

I'm not convinced that stake-weighted voting fundamentally doesn't work, either. I think it's very appealing to have a vote that gains value based on how much effort you've invested here and how much you've contributed. That may be weighted farther toward external financial power than it would ideally be, and certainly the distribution of power is currently a mess, but I don't think those are insoluble problems.

My vision of Steem five years from now is one where there's a large population of established users with $1-$10 votes who can collectively guide the growth of the content and the community.

Ned really likes conceptual work. Which is great, I do too! But you can't really take them as signs that that thing is coming the way he talks about it. That's not necessarily inappropriate in this case, as SMTs are Hardfork 22 at the earliest, and that's probably next summer. (#21 is Hivemind.)

I should have mentioned that estimating how long things take not my strong side is.

But it would still be interesting to get some feedback from Steemit Inc regarding your date estimation. @andrarchy?

Anyway, thinking more about how this fits with my proposal, maybe I'm extrapolating what you're saying too much here, and please say so. But it sounds like what you would like is to keep the PoS function of Steem running but remove the content voting system from Steem entirely and migrate it to a new SMT.

Don't worry, what you're saying is valid.

What I would like to see and what is possible are two different shoes. But the first step is always writing down the optimal situation. And that's, what my goal was with this post.

I'm not convinced that stake-weighted voting fundamentally doesn't work, either. I think it's very appealing to have a vote that gains value based on how much effort you've invested here and how much you've contributed. That may be weighted farther toward external financial power than it would ideally be, and certainly the distribution of power is currently a mess, but I don't think those are insoluble problems.

Stake-weighted voting has value, but I'd rather see it in closed communities - for example if a company were to have a community / SMT with own rewards pool. In that case, the CEO should have a bigger voice than an intern.

My vision of Steem five years from now is one where there's a large population of established users with $1-$10 votes who can collectively guide the growth of the content and the community.

With all respect, 5 years is a long time and we should ideally reach that goal in 1-2 years. But again, my time estimation isn't the best ;)

With all respect, 5 years is a long time and we should ideally reach that goal in 1-2 years.

If Steem Inc. wanted to do it we could have that in months. Even without busting out the ninja-mined stake, if they wanted to give @themesopotamians one of those million-SP delegations I could make 3000 dolphins a year.

Without their support it's going to take longer. I'm conservative on the five year estimate because it's just taking into account the projects that are active and communicative right now. Hopefully we will also be growing.

Maybe @kpine has a different estimate, it seems like he might be doing similar things to what I am with much more power and much less talking about it. I haven't included him because I don't really know.

Says the guy that never experienced them.
There is a reason that stinc enabled the whales to keep abusing the pool.
Its too bad that you are a beneficiary of that abuse, or maybe you would see things differently.

If proof of stake is a good plan, how is nonlinear rewards anything different?
The problem was in the imbalance that the whale experiment solved.

But you wouldnt know that, and apparantly sticking your fingers in your ears is your solution.

Yes, i was here. I saw my vote go from rounding down to .06sbd.
I saw how excited that made everybody.
Too bad stinc, et al, hurried up and forked to stop it.
Ran @dan off, too. Vote selling was the plan and he was against that.
Smdh.
We might have become worthwhile for the newbs to stick around.

nothing stops you from running that same experiment, apart from a few million SP.

Well, that and it makes less sense under linear rewards.

If we are trying to become adopted as a currency the network effect of giving coins to an abusive few makes less sense than exciting a feeding frenzy by making the math attractive to $100 investors.

As it is now 1m users have said we are a game not worth playing, but the same exclusive group is happy accumulating more making the disparity even worse.
Instead of acting in a manner conducive to diminishing the negative aspects of the disparity we have increased it.

I guess that is how stinc, et al, wants to be known.
Not interested in broader adoption.
Seems to be working for them so far, at least they have done nothing to fix their mistakes.

But you are wrong when you talk about Furious Pete and that he gained more value on YouTube. 200k viewers on YouTube is around $100-200. So you think it's more value than it really is. Comments and likes on YouTube is also mainly garbage. Lazy passive people. Steemit is not YouTube and will never be. The audience and community growth will build up in a new organic way here.

And Steemit should probably work on getting more eyeballs but I think it will happen more organically by just making a better product to understand.

I think majority of people do it more for the monetary gain. Having thousands of eyeballs can be more annoying for a content creators on YouTube. I have a YouTube channel with over 1 million follows and majority of people would prefer a smaller group of let's say 150 people to give massive value to. Since you then are valued more like a human and not an object.

It's more resource effective of getting the same value on Steemit in monetary gain from 100 people compared to thousands of people on YouTube clicking and watching a video.

Yes many content creators also enjoy getting viewers and they for sure don't like the current version of YouTube. It was nicer around 2007 to be a content creator there. Mainly because the leadership on YouTube is a disaster and that you can't build real trust and relationships on YouTube. Something that you can do on Steemit.

I can attest to this as well from a new users perspective. I have a rough time finding quality content creators to follow so I can only imagine how annoying it probably is for someone trying to use their VP to curate for the good of the platform.

As the hybrid word that does not exist yet would say: Presactly! (precisely and exactly) - But, we need to get over the emotional bumps on the road that don't allow us to have a mature conversation about this.

Whatever path we take, it must be a win for everyone, or its pointless.

This is very much the problem - it's a lot of work to find content you value here and every dApp we add makes it harder. We need one or more effective mechanisms that present audience members with content that they will enjoy. The original idea behind Steem was that the curation system would do that, and at the top levels there seems to be a lot of denial of the fact that it is an abject failure.

Fixing it in some fashion, whether it's algorithmic or manual or some combination, ought to be a priority. Probably the first priority.

Bernie, you're in a very unique position as a whale in this platform that actually cares about it and with big enough balls to let public hear your thoughts. I think you could do lot more here, if I remember correctly, you created the first vote selling bot and even though I don't like the effect they've had on the platform, it still says lot about your creativity.

What do I mean, well for example, regarding this problem you could list your needs as a whale for what it would require to make your curation process easier. Perhaps totally new website just with content that is selected by community selected curators that can be voted out? I don't know, but I'm sure there's plenty of devs who would like to hear what whales need and want to see developed.

I also don't understand how that will make it nice to have SP. So 1 new account have as much power as massive SP holders? Doesn't make any sense. This will open up a black market for buying these 1 Account = 1 Vote accounts. Everything has a price

The whale experiment leveled the field some.
A cap of 800mv was enough to make my vote go from nothing to .06sbd.
I didnt get enough time to get a feel for the math, stinc hurried up and hardforked.

If we want to grow the platform by rewarding 'good' content, stinc, et al, has failed miserably at that.
Better to bring back the whale experiment and let the community decide.
We can always raise the cap as we grow the bottom enough to not capsize the boat.
Flags for the abusers.

But dont mention that to poly, he has his fingers in his ears, and doesnt want to hear it.

I agree with your analysis of management and the social media. However, I have a problem with 1 account = 1 vote: there are hundreds of thousands of accounts that are bots. So, how to differentiate a person from a bot? Should we apply the KYC rule? And how could Steemit comply with the GDPR law? I can not see a solution with Steemit's governance system. The code is the law but the code is made by humans where the consensus is difficult!

The proposal for authentication is stacked. But, in the case of the proposed SMT, the one on the video, there would be to sets of oracles filtering the users.

One set would be implementing 1 account 1 vote - this could be approached in a similar fashion that people to introduceyourself posts at the moment. However, who is to say that the account faucet could not also have IP restrictions and what not. Granted this part could be tricked, an Oracle could miss that one account created three more. But this is when the second account kicks in.

The second set of oracles determine if the user is acting ethically. If the user is spam farming, triggering upvotes thru automated curation trails, etc. The oracles could shutdown all those account's earnings.

So, to be clear. it's not 100% bulletproof but... The amount of work abusers would have to do, might be enough to curve it significantly.

The moment they get discovered, they lose all possibilities of making any income. Unlike today, were if they have stake, it doesn't matter if they abuse, because they got enough stake to live outside the ethical expectations we may have.

An abuser will use a VPN to counter an IP. Is it possible to use the IMEI? A person can have multiple devices but usually a person is single to use these devices. So IP + IMEI could be an account.
However, there is still the GDPR. Several law firms are studying the possibility of litigating large corporations and blockchains. In the case of blockchains, it will be miners and witnesses who will be prosecuted.

i hear you, you are being logical brother. I'm not devil advocating to disagree, I'm simply trying to point out that the expectation behind participating of Steem is because people here can make money.

We have to be honest, i love our dapps, but they are young and glitchy. Remove the monetary compensation, and there reasons to participate of them reduce quite considerably.

Maybe not for me, maybe I would say.. but im trying not to judge solely from my point of view.

i guess my question is- how would the posts have value? how would the earnings change? if 1account=1vote and oracles and communities decide what things are worth -- do the oracles/communities then have to work really hard to "be worth anything" to be able to give a vote?

i see this changing the entire ecosystem of steem and i'm honestly confused as to what it will look like and now what type of behavior will be incentivized. take food, for example... food is a huge category wherever you go on the internet. always a lot of people clamoring for that well photographed yummy food porn! will the "food" community (because of the # of its users) have a lot of "power" (highter vote b/c more votes?) and the lesser (less members) communities have small votes simply because they have less interest. this will incentivize people to get into the communities with more people?

i truly don't see how this can pan out in a healthy way!! haha, because in the end, it does come down to earnings no matter what people will say and earnings incentivize behavior! curious to hear people's thoughts who do have a better grasp on this. @therealwolf@meno@tcpolymath

This is 100% what I am working on with the 1UP project. Luckily, I found investors now and the developing start next week. We will create a platform with 1 account = 1 vote which maixmized profitability for investors and token holders. At the same time we create our own ranking lists which will be 100 times better than the trending page. And on top of that, 1UP will reward all those people who use the platform to upvote others with our system so everybody will make money and be part of the game.

@flauwy could you explain it a bit more in detailed? :)
How do you imagine to maximize 1A1V for investors and token holders? I mean sounds great but don't​ have a picture in my head how this could work. Would love hearing more of that project. :)

This happens by maximizing the curation rewards in order to create higher revenue for the user compared to the normal Steem system. By giving up the Proof-of-Stake system and surrender to a hivemind curation the better content will win through Proof-of-Brain of the masses. By doing so the investor automatically upvotes the winning post and gets a higher curation reward for that compared to any manual upvote. At the same time we have users getting paid for giving 1UPs every single day which will make that an important income stream for them and increases the value. Finding a good balance for the 1A1V comes through gamification that ranks users according to their previous participation in 1UP. Also, not everyone gets a vote and their will be many filters preventing abuse through multiple accounts. The exact details are yet to be discussed. I am uploading a video right now about that topic where I need some feedback for how to achieve that and reduce abuse.

Thanks for your efforts, it's good to see these type of content trending. Now I remember that my friend @knircky suggested the 1 account - 1 vote concept 1.5 years ago for the very same reasons. Let's see if we need another 1.5 years to finally implement it :-) Hopefully not!

It'll be tough to push this through. Too many large stakeholders are too comfortable in the current situation. Or why do we think they ignore those big influencers leaving without even raising an eyebrow...? :-)

We should not forget that some of those big influencers like the one mentioned above just don't make content interesting to grown-ups but rather to 14year old youtube-addicts :D So it's quite natural that they don't have success on a platform with 99+% 18year+ old people.

I don't think that Steem has any intention to become an adults only club, so to me it would rather make sense to keep such influencers in order to onboard new target groups. If we want Steem to be accessible to masses, then this also and especially includes teenagers.

I am about to bail on Steem. I don't see this turning out well. We have no idea where we are going with this blockchain and even if we did it is taking years to get anywhere. 1 Account 1 Vote is like taking a big crap on my little stack of Steem Power I have been accumulating for the last two years and then saying it's even better than it was before. Ultimatum is coming soon. If none of these developments (Communities, quick sign-ups and SMTs) are put into production by July 2019 I am so out of here. I will have 3 years under my belt at that point. I hope I can look back on these words some day and realize how foolish I was but at this point I feel like we will be in the same boat next July.

In a case 1A1V all votes would have the same value as I understand. Let suppose it would be 2$.
That's a monthly wage in Venezuela and a cup of coffee in Canada.
What about that?
Am I missing something?
Enlighten me, please.

The problem with this system is that then it becomes about feeding the mainstream masses what they want and manipulate the rankings like that. Just the way politics work. The current voting system is more aristocratic and generates way higher quality content. If you want the rankings be ruled by the average low invested person you will see lower quality. Money generates more incentive to create massive quality content. It puts more responsibility on the user.

It makes sense, but the question is the same.
In Venezuela, you'll need 100K votes for a monthly salary and in Canada 100M.
Imagine if 500M Chinese people sign up and start posting in their language and upvote their own people's posts.
Don't get me wrong, please.
I'm aware current state is bad but I'm not sure about your proposal.

With all due respect @oldtimer this is a bit of a strawman concern. It's the equivalent of the one I've heard before.

What if CNN buys 20 million Steem and starts censoring anything fringe.

I understand what you mean, I'm not dismissing it, it's not impossible, its just highly improbable.

And because I don't want to come off as someone who is just spouting assertions without any type of backing.

Dunbar theory proposes that the an efficient social network maxes out at 150 people. From this number we have to assume collaboration, specially to this rank is fractionary. It would be difficult to imagine 150 coinciding on what to contribute towards at all times. And, since humans can't seem to care enough about people outside of the tolerance of 150, the network effect is capped in two fronts.

In other words. Imagining that millions of people can come together and collaborate at a macro sense almost goes against our nature, and we have no anecdotal evidence to prove it either.

To be a bit ridiculous (i apologize, its how i talk) we would have solved world hunger if we had that range of empathy and that selfless capacity for collaboration.

You don't need to apologize. I just want to spur the conversation.
Most of the time simple six-pack joe's logic is better than all theories.
And it's not censoring I'm worried about.
With 500M accounts, I mentioned in my comment above, we can expect a lot of good recipes on how to perfect grill the dog on BBQ on the hot page and even on trending.
I use to live in a socialism for 30 years and believe me. It doesn't work. Tested.

You are right. Socialism and Communism leads to the same shit system. The only sane system is an aristocratic rule system where people highly invested makes the big decisions. But a system that also allows people to grow and rise up to a high position of responsibility. That is impossible in a socialist/communist system. There is no top. There is then also no real empowerment for a human.

Hahahaha Hot dog recipes trending... I hear you. On the other hand, quality is very much subjective. I left a huge comment on Bernie's post regarding my opinion on this matter.

I mean, I don't want to come off as elitist, but for me cat pictures and hotdogs are not part of my content diet. Meaning, that when I'm of the idea of learning something new, a new theory, philosophy, or what have you, the last thing that will distract me is such content.

However, I'm sympathetic to the fact that for many people their cat is the most precious thing in the world and they need to have hundreds of pictures of it.

I think my idea of "quality content" that is, well written articles in all the fields that I enjoy will probably sprout as an offshoot of Steem. Possibly an SMT with that niche in mind.

But when it comes to mass adoption, its reasonable to think that we will do better with BBQ pictures and alike.

Let's say for every one guy who enjoys deep thought, there are thousands of six-pack joes. And both are equally important.

Agree.
For me, this place is to complex and I don't even try to understand how it works.
Thinking about how to change it? No way.
I never waste my time on things I can't change.
But that's just me.
I'm sure a lot of smart people are on the steemit. But even if we figure out what to do we have 21 witnesses to agree upon and confirm the changes.

I am going to need to go witch @tcpolymath here... Stakeholding should be incentivized, next to creating content.
The Oracle-thing hasn't convinced me yet, if it is something that works like the witness-system with votes for the oracles it could work, but who says abuse isn't possible...

There is always a middle way too, it could be possible to make vote with less Steem Power a little more attractive, and more SP a little less attractive... I mean, make the upvote value curve/line less steep... I don't know, just thinking out loud here...

but thats why hundreds / thousands maybe next Millions of Fake/BOT accounts will be there.... im still afraid about this huge possible BAD Power it could get gained if maybe bots today make you great but what happens when some of em start to use it in a bad wayy like these upcoming negative voters now they dont have power... but maybe its only a testrun .... the first way everyone could have 1 ACCOUNT would be great ....

nah im not... if i be one of em... i wouldnt talk about , im not able to think about it before it happens... i wouldn´t stay in here... im still doin my "SHIT" and be happy about Steemit and all this chances i can do in and around it...

actually a really great post.. and also the link to tcpolymath.. this definitely would help the steemit ecosystem.. also major flaw is still in place... this is how fiat enters the system... will write a post about what I mean by that...

I think when talking about big content creators from other platforms, you also should keep in mind what content they produce and who their fans are. Some big influencers probably have 99% followers under the age of 17-18, while I suppose 99% of the STEEM accounts belong to people 18 years or older.

So if such a star just comes to Steemit/Dtube/Dlive and expects the same results with little to no community interaction (watch your examples amount of meaningful comments f.e.), they will fail. And it is great that they do.

It's the best system that is out right now. Maybe a competitor can make a better system eventually. But right now the Steem Blockchain is the only Facebook + Blockchain system that works and is out right now. Real competition seems to be 2-3 years away.

That’s very interesting and it makes sense! I think steemit needs to start differenting the type of users that use the platform! Some are there for stake, some are here to create, some are here to review and interact, some are here to create community and each type of user is vital to the overall ecosystem to thrive and grow! These subsets cannot he treated equally with a blanket rule and the introduction of SMT, oracle and 1 account 1 vote would be a welcomed change!

In all the discussion and info I’ve seen, I think it’s important to note that hypothetical 1 account = 1 vote systems have been applicable only to a new token (SMT) and not to Steem directly. When moving to a multi token system, Steem and its corresponding rewards, will most likely remain stake weighted. 1/1 systems can influence content sorting and secondary token distribution; with content sorting being the most important aspect; to truly create a trending page and legitimately viral content.

It’s still too early for big YouTube & other social media stars who have active user bases larger than the entire Steem user base! Obviously they’ll only appeal to a small subset of people on the platform at the moment and are bound to see markedly lesser results. We still need people who have a vision of what Steem will become & actively work to build it before cashing in. I think the fixed account signup and resource credit system is key here, because to date, even if larger players have been willing to try moving their audiences to Steem, they’ve been hamstrung.

Thank you! I agree, content creators benefit more from lots of traffic and not a few big votes. The big votes are nice, but are also the equivalent of feeding an animal; stop feeding the animal and it leaves to seek nourishment elsewhere.

Thank you! I agree, content creators benefit more from lots of traffic and not a few big votes. The big votes are nice, but are also the equivalent of feeding an animal; stop feeding the animal and it leaves to seek nourishment elsewhere.

Let me explain myself better. Oracles don't have the power to stop an account from posting. Even if that account is deemed a bad user, someone who is "labeled" as such can continue to participate of the SMT. He or She just wont make any money.

I totally agree with these thoughts by you and other people. On steemit, the stakeholders are the only ones getting huge revenue while other small hardworking creators, get revenue either by buying little votes from the botes or by doing comments, like i am doing a comment on your post. First, when i came to this plateform, i couldn't understand it much and i thought everyone who is good creator is getting suitable revenue. But it was surprisingly different. Here a shi* post earns huge rewards just by buying votes because he has money in the bank while a hardworking creator, who thought i would earn by my work is failed.
This platform needs serious changes. I also want to stay here and want to contribute my little efforts to make the community worthy of saying social media.
Best wishes to steemit and you, Sir.

Why does everyone discuss social media in the same breath as content creation? They are totally different things. Which one do we want Steem to be because its currently failing miserably on both scores and is currently little more than a game of economics for middle class people people with money to chip in with.
I actually think, with all the DApps now available, that Steem is better suited to communities and social media.
Content is secondary here so lets cut the boring 'quality content' crap and use it as a Faceboom with reward. It would make it infinitely more popular and usable and if SMTs ever appear, then start dividing the Steem blockchain into specific uses. Wordpress style or Social media style.
The quality content has fought a losing battle. Lets have some fun and get the Whales to pull the sticks out of their arses.
I want everyone to post pouty lip selfies and food pics and stupid memes.....
Hang on, thats all people do already!

Anyway, like i said on my other comment, the way steemit works right now, it cant be a high quality content platform.

Why would i post my high quality piece of work here to make some small earnings for 7 days, while i can publish on Medium, my own blog, or any other platform that will generate revenue for me as long as the content is up?

I like the voting idea too. Have to say though, I have not been on steem long but am enjoying it regardless. As a new steemer I feel I do not have much say in the grand scheme. I will say it is great to have somewhere like this for my creative urges Cheers for the post!

i agree with this post. i also want a clean steem, clean from nsfw tag. delete it all together and establish guidelines. that prevents pornographic content getting out to steemians. just today i saw it and i was really upset. art photography is great though. who else thinks so?

Good article, good ideas. But if i may, i'd like to ask:
If the purpose is to bring in successful content creators and make them stay on steem, shouldn't they be also rewarded for traffic, views, and readership generated from outside the community?
If a content on steemit goes viral on many of the other social media, gets shared here and there, and generates lots of views from non-members and probably from people who had never heard of steemit shouldn't authors expect some reward for that? On their own blog they monetize that traffic through adds, referrals, etc...
Even if an external viewer gets interested and decided to join the community to upvote, she has to wait for her new account to be validated, and most probably by then she would have already forgotten about the article that brought her here in the first place.

I love that these discussions are taking place. It's very important that a bunch of issues get solved. However, I think many of the suggested changes are kinda radical and they need to be very well thought through so they don't cause more harm than good. Where and how are these things being discussed? Would anyone run some simulations on how this will play out in the end? I think for an active open community it would be important to publicly debate these changes before they are being made.

As a plankton, I would like to believe that it will be beneficial to the likes of me, I lack content for posting, but also do not have funds for big staking in SP.
My question is, WHEN will these hard fork 20 will take place?

Good content with lots of interactions can be one of the many indicators for success in steemit. then let us improve the quality of the work so that all can get the principle of benefits and creativity even more increased

What might make this account based voting cool, is if you need a certain number of steem to vote as many times as possible. This way, people will buy steem to be able to vote, and hence steem gains value

Before stinc, et al's coup we didnt have these problems.
Vote selling got you flagged.
Crap posts were very few.
The n2 encouraged holding sp in one account.
The whale abuse was getting smacked down by @abit and @smooth.
But stinc hurried up and enabled reward pool rape, vote selling, selfvoting, and crap posting.
Because we couldn't have the newbs figure out how much the top accounts were sucking out each day.

I read the other post still not sure what advantage holding SP is under the proposed system. I'm not holding SP just to vote on site decisions or some other lofty goal, and i wanted to do that I'd join decred. I'm holding sp to make more steem.

The system is whack now don't get me wrong. Famous people can come here and have 2 cent blogs because they don't have whale friends, steemit will never gain widespread adoption like this

Example: @ned is the CEO of Steemit Inc and has millions of Steempower, but this fact shouldn't give his opinion hundred-thousand times more weight in terms of the subjective rating of content in comparison to the average user.

steem should be more decentralized from ned before it's ready for mainstream. the fact that one man has control over all hardforks, most witnesses, and is the biggest stakeholder with zero competitors is a huge red flag. i dunno why so many people are completely ok with it 😦

maybe it's just me, but i don't think steem is censorship resistant right now.

i hope account-based voting would work as intended. but we're back to the same problem. we rely on ned to define 'quality posts' and 'good persons'.

You know what.. This is EXACTLY the problem I mentioned shortly in my previous post but with a bit different twist since it was about my 1 year experience on Steemit. I believe making all votes worth the same would be what could open up people to not only come but also STAY on Steemit. I always had this feeling of in the beginning we all were relying on a big whale to upvote us and now it is more about vote bots. neither any good if you ask me.

It was always my wonder how this situation could change without damaging the attractive part of powering up and I think this proposal.. in my own humble opinion sounds like the way Steem should be heading.

Equality is what we need on Steem/Steemit and this comes from one who is also a stakeholder. Besides, even if you are a whale or having a large amount of SP, the idea of making Steemit as a social media blossom would be beneficial for everyone. I think it would make complete sense that stake holding would reward you passively with steem, while 1 account = 1 vote would give the power to the WHOLE community.

Thanks a lot for this post. Cheers!

I have personally not followed the discussion about all of this since my activity has been limited from my travels, but people speaking about this as a solution to our problems makes me excited.

Be careful about the word Equality since it's been tried many times in the past and failed. Communism worked out fine huh? Have you ever seen 2 equal leaves in nature? No because it does not exist. If you want to level everyones vote to the same you remove the incentive to work hard.

If you think I asked for communism on a social media platform then no. Equality comes in many forms. But I honestly see no reason for why equal votes would bring less incentive to work hard. I believe I would work harder than ever because now suddenly it is every eye ball that counts and not just a few. I guess you could see it more as a democratic approach in a way? That structure seems quite successful in terms of electors have to work much harder to gain the vote from the crowd.

I'm not asking everyone to have same success, but letting the crowd choose those who should be successful.

It has worked well up to now? Really does that sound like a genius idea? The means the dumb down masses will decide what get's in and what gets elected. Which means the dumbest product will get to the top. Think McDonalds. Do you think the crowd is qualified to decide who should be a success? Do they have good taste?

It's not hard to get the mainstream masses on your side. You just have to lie to them and tell them what they want to hear. They fall for it every single time. This is the system you want to see.

Well on the other hand most people's life are pretty comfortable so it may not be a huge need to question everything. We have those already haha. If everyone questioned all maybe the world would explode ;)